


look no further

by silvery_sunset



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Angst, Card Games, Existential Angst, M/M, Sexual Content, Snake metaphors, Unresolved Sexual Tension, it's complicated - Freeform, mentions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 10:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27969161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvery_sunset/pseuds/silvery_sunset
Summary: The weird contortionist was indeed a malicious viper that distilled deadly venom coming from predatory, enticing emerald eyes.Osamu is fascinated.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	look no further

**Author's Note:**

> I like to call this my biggest nightmare. This monstrosity is dedicated to my dear friend Kira who's the reason this thing exists. It is also dedicated out of spite for capitalism and the fact that I spent over an hour trying to find decent graphics for it. (Spoiler: I didn't)
> 
> I hope you like it and please mind the tags. The sexual scenes are mostly what I call Schrodinger's porn. You choose if they did it or not based on the vibes you catch.

It’s a sweet fantasy-like atmosphere to where Miya Osamu runs away with nothing but the clothes on his body, his grandfather's old dagger and matchbox for cigarettes he’d lost on the way to catching the train to the circus that passed by the town. 

A while has gone in the blink of an eye, he doesn’t really have a notion of how much time has passed, but the place is comforting, the people are nice and he’d find a use for that matchbox at some point. 

He’s not a balanced person in any way, but suppressing and forgetting have been working for him since Osamu’s known himself, there’s no need to stop and test his restraint. 

Incessant chase for a feeling he can’t name took him places he’d never imagine. He can smile and play with the eyes of those who watch him in the streets, taking one or two coins with him, a tip for his work. He just never remembers to ask. It’s walking on the streets where he learns things can disappear, transform and never come back with the excuse of magic that’s beyond human comprehension. 

He steals a deck of cards from a toy house,one of his firsts tries to test that wonderful play of speed and light. The dagger and the matchbox still accompany him,memories that never leave his head at night.

He wonders how Atsumu is doing before blowing the candle that lights his spot near a fortune teller’s tent in a certain city. In Osmau’s slumber, his brother had followed on with his life and chose to forget about fights, family and betrayals. A glimpse of a smile appears on a face equal to his in his dream, pondering the forgiveness of a runaway before it all fades again, burning down to ashes. 

“what a coward, ‘Samu, gonna spend yer whole life hidin’?”

Osamu’s breath is short when the first rays of sunlight catch on his dark hair. A weird shadow immediately takes it away, the figure of a woman with a basket in her hands frowning at him appearing in front of the sun.

Destiny, she claims when asked why she was helping him. It’s cruel, Osamu thinks, to think people are meant to suffer and others are meant to be helped. 

Still, he accepts it and lets her teach him more of the magic that guides to where the world wants to take him. 

The circus is a paradise, indeed. The impossible turns possible, the voyeuristic fascination of watching the limits of the body and safety be constantly defies on the ring. For the first time, when he steps on it, Osamu feels alive.

His head is plagued by his cowardice every night, he falls asleep beggin the pardon of the only one he has left in such a big world, but just like his nightmares, it all crumbles to ashes in his hands. Consummated by daggers buried on the wall.

The song in the background fills his system when his lips touch the handle of the knife before it cuts the air silently, landing millimeters away from his victim. Blindfolded, dumb to his own egostistical reasons to put their life in his hands.

Heat is his best friend, twisting the torches in his hands sends him high in a power trip every night, blowing them up in the air felt right. So close to kissing his skin and leaving a mark. It’s all his, a force of nature that bends to his will, cauterizes all thoughts for mere seconds. On stage, he’s no coward chasing for relief, he’s a hero, a villain, a performer.

If the trip is intoxicatingly good and sends him to heaven, his descend to hell is fervent and raging, scalding wrath and fire suppressed and buried away.

Suna Rintarou’s arrival tears it all down, cuts his self made bindings away and invites him into uncharted territory without meaning to. Or maybe with all intention, unreadable gaze and silky voice being enough to leave Osamu on an edge he’s no longer in control of.

Osamu’s happy circus quickly becomes a freak show where he is the audience, the host and the ring leader. 

There's exchanges of looks and words during the rehearsals, it's comfortable to have someone who's not born into the environment by your side. All odds are in the favor of a blooming friendship. Except odds, purposes and destinies are bullshit to this particular couple of people. 

It's at one night where Osamu's not performing, the tent was not completely prepared to protect the audience from fire. He's at the front, supposed to be attracting people with magic tricks. 

Three wealthy looking young women come close by, definitely not attracted by the magic, he figures by the way they try to disguise the stares. They're giggling at the picturesque sight of the circus behind them, songs playing from the tent, lights announcing its presence in the sky. 

One of them wears a golden wristband that is loose in her wrist. She takes it off and leaves a small part of it hanging from the inside of the pocket of her purse. 

Osamu raises an eyebrow at her from his spot, resting against one of the poles that supported the tent, wrapped with lightbulbs. 

"Lookin' for something?" He smirks at the way the girl that carried the bracelet blushed slightly, avoiding his eyes, the jewelry in the purse glistening now that she was close. "Maybe this?" He asks, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, a small flower appears in his hand. 

She takes it with a small smile. Osamu takes her hand in his, noticing the small trembling of her hand and the eyes of her friends. "Soft palm, even lines at this spot, meeting at the third section..." Osamu's eyes scan for reactions. He lifts the hand to his lips, kissing its back. "If I show ya a trick, would you and yer friends consider stayin' the night?" 

The girl's eyes are wide, breath deep, she's trying hard to mask herself. "M-maybe." She says. 

Osamu's smile stretches just a little more, pulling out his favorite deck of cards from his pocket. 

The bracelet is heavier than he'd previously thought, but it's still tight on his wrist. Maybe the owner was just a little too skinny. Osamu spins It on his fingers, throws it in the air and watches the gold shine under the lights of the dressing rooms in the circus tent.

"You're always like this, breaking the hearts of innocent ladies?" 

Suna Rintarou is leaning against the door, arms crossed, still in his tight stage outfit, black and green patterns resembling scales spreading on his torso. 

"Ya 'been spying on me?" 

"Not for much time. You're too boring for that."

"Yer not the type to bore yerself for nothing." Osamu sighed, walking towards the exit of the room, shoving the jewelry in his pocket. 

Suna gestures to the deck of cards on the table near the mirror, probably recognizing as the one Osamu used on the girl. 

"Can you play?"

"Now?" 

"Tonight. After the show." Suna smiles, leaning back to give him passage."

Osamu rolls his eyes, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket, hearing the door of the dressing room creak closed for Suna to change.

Arriving to his own trailer after helping to clean it all for the night and prepare for the afternoon spectacle, he realizes he forgot his deck in the dressing room. 

\--

"Ya invited me to play cards." 

"That's what we're doing."

Suna smiled from the ceiling, hanging from the side of the hoop, his hair covered one of the green-ish silver eyes that stared holes into his soul. Osamu looked away. 

The deck of cards, his deck, was on top of the table of the improvised dining room inside the trailer Suna lived in. It was a small place, but still managed to fit the damn aerial hoop inside it for some magical reason. 

Suna slowly released his hand from it, reaching for the chair in front of Osamu. The dim light that came from outside made his silhouette hide among the shadows. The makeshift kitchen had a small fridge and the said dining table in it. On the opposite side a futon laid on the floor beside a lamp and a pile of books. Boxes full of clothes, costumes and sewing material were all over where he could look at. Amidst the mess, Suna's slim figure stood in an elegance Osamu doesn't think he'd find anywhere. 

"Ya said ya wanted to play but are bettin' or…"

"Not a game." His hands picked the deck up, shuffling the cards in an amateur way. Osamu's hand twitched at the sight, but not now. They're supposed to have a one sided talk where he avoids the wild glint in those green eyes, apparently.

"Show me your magic." 

"Ya know it's not magic."

"Show me. That trick from earlier today, the one that broke that girl's heart."

Osamu raised an eyebrow, shuffling the cards and displaying them. "Ya wanna find out the trick? I ain't tellin'"

"Just want to know if magic is all that." 

"Ya been livin' in places like this and still don't know what it is like?" Osamu took the card from Suna, spreading ten of them facing the table between the two of them. 

"Haven't been living. I've been here for months, it’s my first." 

"And they gave ya a solo on yer first try…"

"I'm that good."

Osamu rolled his eyes. "Draw three cards, memorize them and place them back while I'm not looking."

"How do I know you're not gonna look?"

"I don't need to. Trust me." The corner of Osamu's lips twitched at the silence that came when he turned around. 

"Done. Read my mind now." He snorted, offering a pale wrist before Osamu's eyes. 

He remembers what he's supposed to do but something freezes him on spot. He'd taken that girl's hands in his, pressed the vein on his wrist slightly. Yer heart is running, he'd told her, counting the beats and letting her think she's guiding him to the spot that had been memorized the moment he shuffled the cards. 

Suna's smooth skin contrasts the callouses on his fingertips, bruises marking the forearms, along with the small resemblance of the green and blue pathways made by veins. His eyes didn't dare to travel upwards, where the rolled black sleeves of his shirt covered the rest of that seemingly delicate figure. Suna was probably stronger or at least strong enough to make him struggle under his grip, but the velvet that slid under his fingers invited him into the trap. 

Osamu nods to the warnings and wraps his hand around Suna's wrist.

"Cold."

"Your hand is too warm." Suna mutters and smiles when Osamu's grip tightens a little too much for a fraction of second. Osamu pressed his thumb slightly over the small wrinkles that marked his joint, the faint pulse being evidence that he was, indeed, touching, talking and feeling a living human being in his hands.

"I'll guide yer hand across the table and stop it wherever I want it to, then draw yer cards out."

Suna nods and Osamu moves his hand slowly above the lined up cards. Raising his head, he makes another of many bad decisions and lets himself be the one who feels trapped in a magical spell whenever the light reflects in green and gray irises directly into his own, consuming him whole.

Squirming on his seat, Osamu takes a deep breath. He draws the first card, Suna's blood still in his wrist, flowing slow and steady. 

"Ten of spades." Suna's eyes don't lose the wonder that made Osamu want to do this on first place, but he'd rather ignore it for the sake of sleeping well tonight without thoughts of the viper eyes that stared him down as he's bent to the will of a certain contortionist. 

"Queen of hearts." The blood pumps are tactible now, when Osamu smiles to show the second correct card, sliding it to Suna's side. 

"Do you always have to hold so tight?" Suna asks, the pulse is hammering inside his veins, Osamu can see his chest's rise and fall from his peripheral vision. He squeezes the wrist a little harder, nails lightly grazing the skin there when he stops on the last chosen spot.

"Are you sure it's the last?" 

Osamu snickers, his grip is light and his other hand moves, drawing the card without looking at it. "A joker."

He pretends not to notice the pinkish red painted on the skin of the wrist Suna now rubbed slightly on his other hand. He hopes it bruises, just so he can have a taste of what it looks like.

"You're really good."

"So are ya, at hanging around."

"Why steal the jewelry though?"

"Opportunity recognition. I like shiny things and people fall too easily for this. They love believing someone can enter their minds through simply feeling the beats of their heart."

"And you can't?" 

"For some it's true, for some it isn't." Osamu states, standing up slowly. Suna follows, hand back to the hoop hanging from the ceiling. 

"What makes you guess it?" 

"How far they let me look, yer cold, Suna, I almost thought ya were a corpse." He snorts, watching Suna lift his body to rest his thighs on the perfect ring suspended in the air, he moves forward until it's his back on the spot, leaning his torso back to meet Osamu's eyes, slit pupils dilated in the dark of the room, barely lit by the lamp in the bedroom and the moon.

"Look no further, Miya Osamu." His smile extends to the soft, overly sweet tone.

Osamu's not frozen anymore, but leaving the trailer and greeting goodnight, he pretends the shivers down his spine only come from the cold  
night air. 

You might regret

\--

Under the spotlight, he could finally understand the name of the spectacle. Viper. Suna's torso drew a dark silhouette against the beam of light, his body slowly rising on his feet, back serpentining up, left and right forming a perfect wave in the air to the sound of the flute, like a serpent dancing along the fakirs in those movies. 

The dark green is scattered on the outfit that revealed more than it could cover, fabric covering a spiral across his hips that faded on his chest and came back on his neck, like scales shining under the light. The pale skin of Suna's limbs contrasted perfectly with it and moved gracefully before the audiences' attentive eyes. 

Osamu could swear the glint of Suna's green eyes could be seen under the hood of the vest that failed to cover his chest, falling alongside him fluidly. 

When the hoop came down and Suna climbed to it, Osamu knew he'd chosen the best word to describe it. Fluid, smooth and oddly hypnotizing. The way Suna could twist his spine around the hanging hoop, his core holding his ankles tightly to it as he defied gravity, spinning in the air and letting his body almost fall from it. While he was in control of the show, Suna's eyes never left the audience, fixated on a spot Osamu couldn't figure out. 

The weird contortionist was indeed a malicious viper that distilled deadly venom coming from predatory, enticing emerald eyes.

Osamu is fascinated. 

He practices the next day, knives flying on empty boards thinking of it, the way the song that Suna chose had a hypnotic muttered vocal, how he could imagine him mouthing it as he swung in the air, graceful almost inhuman strength made him look fragile, light as a feather. 

What more is there to it? 

His place is of a boring grey at the first hours of afternoon, Osamu cooks, walks in circles and counts every little weird spot on his wall of unknown origin.

The sound of his own breath made him want to scream at that point. Leaving the trailer Osamu breathes in the fresh air and sighs at the warmth of the sun on his head. 

Suna's trailer is empty. He must be practicing, probably still sleepy after their game. They've been playing for a while now, bridge, hearts, hanafuda, betting drinks and doing the opposite of relaxing in each other's presence. 

"How did ya get here?", He'd asked Suna last night, beating the gin for the third time. 

"I don't have anywhere else to go nor anything else to do." Suna sipped from the bottle of whiskey Osamu had snatched from the ring leader's cabinet earlier. 

"And ya just accept it? Performing for people when ya could be anywhere else?" 

"I don't believe in having a strong reason to do everything."

"But ya do have a reason to stay."

"It feels right. Feels like something." Suna's cheeks had an almost unnoticeable shade of pink to them when he laid his head sideways on the table, eyes ever predatory, scanning every expression on Osamu's face. "I know it's the same for you."

He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything about Suna besides how bad he is at gin and how he cheats truco with enough perfection to only be noticed by a cheater as well. Suna's posture is contained, as if he's trying to make his presence the smallest he can, voice the lowest he could, taking turns on whether letting Osamu think he has the grip on the conversation and switching the roles in the blink of an eye, viridescent gleam of his pupils, as if he's drinking on it, the control. 

As if he's performing again, and Osamu's is his exclusive audience.

\--

Osamu had ditched their game night on the previous day without warning him about it, Suna’s back stinged a little from leaning on the hoop all that time, a little above his most sensitive spot in his spine. There were no more painkillers in his drawer, all gone due to headaches and frustrating tries to fall asleep inside that little steel box barely fitting a human inside. 

Steal painkillers and chat, it’s what he’s doing making his way towards the bigger trailer on the opposite side of his.Osamu hasn’t appeared since morning when Suna did not spend several minutes staring at him sharpening the blades from his window.

There’s no answer to his knocks, the rusty door creaks open. “Hey, Osam-”

Suna steps on the first step to climb inside and hears a faint whistle cutting the air beside him, blowing against his temple. Suna doesn’t have to look behind himself to know there’s a small blade piercing through the inner wooden structure of the door, resting inches away from his face. 

“What do ya want?” his voice comes from further than Suna could see, the sunset was already hiding behind the valley where the circus stayed and the lack of light in the trailer made it hard to know where it came from.

“You’re gonna miss one of these someday if you keep throwing them around” 

“I never miss.”

“So yesterday was on purpose?”

Osamu’s voice was an ever gloomy emotionless pitch it always carried, as if it buried down his intentions far away down the ground, only rising in boiling heat, exploding like a volcano in words that could hurt way worse than the knives and the fire he dared to challenge on the stage. 

“Didja miss me then?” he asks it and for Suna it is sweet, sugary and melodic, sung in notes that aren't supposed to linger in the air for that much time, but they do and they ring in his head for even more than he would admit. Osamu wants to play the game, Suna knows all the rules.

Osamu's not afraid to play with fire.

Suna hears footsteps when he's about to try to climb in again only to see Osamu leaning against the door, fair 30 centimeters above him at least, exhibiting the faintest curve of a smile on his lips for slightest of the seconds. 

“I don’t mind you, it gets cold there sometimes.” he shrugged, giving back the smile to Osamu, lingering a little longer on his mouth.

They’re inside now. Suna’s never entered his trailer before, it’s obviously bigger than his, Osamu had closed the door as he stepped in, pulling the knife out of the wood and twirling in on his hand, checking for any kind of fracture on the metal, probably. His hand slides on the small dining table, pictures were stuck on the wall behind one of the futons that rested on the back of the trailer, the other had a candle and a box of matches beside it.

“I need your meds, I’m going back then, since you’re not in the mood for talking.”

“What do ya mean?”

“I don't know, trying to stab people that are at your doorway doesn’t make you seem a nice host.”

Osamu’s sigh is very audible from outside the makeshift closet of the trailer where he currently buried his head into, shuffling around for the painkillers. Suna sat on the chair near the dining table, scanning the room around a little more. 

“The matches… Are you that much of a pyromaniac?”

“If ya can hang from the ceiling, playing a little won’t hurt me.”

“We’re talking very different things.”

“Here’s your meds.” the box of capsules fell on the table. Three of them left, Suna remembers it being full the last time he’d asked for it, after seeing Osamu take them in the middle of one of their games. They were shoved in his wardrobe along the medicines for sleep. 

Osamu sits in front of him and pushes it in his direction, Suna takes it in his hands, looking at it from all possible angles. Osamu’s fingers drum on the glass tabletop, synced with Suna’s foot, bouncing under the translucent surface.

“You're acting weird."

"Just been thinking."

"Stop it, too much of an effort for you." Suna giggled, watching Osamu's expression shift into a grumpy scowl, nose scrunched up and buried in his sleeve. 

He looked small, the way his body squirmed on the seat and his eyes avoided his. Not quite childish enough, but anxious. 

"You're bad at hiding how you feel." Suna smiled, testing the waters out, he extended an arm to ruffle the dark brown bangs, messy and slightly damped, probably from practicing his aim at home. "At least for me." He throws the bait. 

Osamu looks up. "Ya think way too high of yerself."

"Don't be annoyed. I'm just saying what I see." 

"Ya look way too far into it." He lifted himself up, taking the knife back, eyes scanning the sharpness. 

It's different from the usual longer knives they keep in the dressing room for some reason. Short, blade slightly curved and handle carved, probably manually. 

"Your family?" He asks, nodding at the blade. Now that Suna can see its full length, it's easy to recognize the shape of an old fashioned dagger. 

Osamu sighs, putting it down, metal clanking on the glass. "Not yer business." 

For the first time since he entered the trailer, Suna can see Osamu's face in the light. He's tired, not the usual tired and gloomy looking eyes. Eye bags form under it, irises unfocused. A single twitch of them at the mention of the dagger is enough. Suna is satisfied with the answer. 

"You have your number today. Try to sleep a little." Suna smiles before closing the metal door behind him. Osamu rolls his eyes, he always does. 

\--

Tonight, Suna knows he's taken a bite of the bait and he's hungry for more. 

He watches from the upper stands as Osamu takes the middle of the ring and, quite literally, sets it on fire. 

The torches are toys in his hands, twirling and twisting in the air creating a beam of heat that lit up the stage, body moving with ease, as if it weighed nothing in his arms. The glimpses of his stern look were betrayed by the feral light in his eyes that Suna couldn't tell if it came from the fire. 

When his mouth meets the top of the torch and he blows it in the air, a beautiful explosion singeing the top of the tent, stealing the breath that's been stuck in Suna's throat, finally released when the lights Osamu's features and he could see it. 

Suna feels as if he'd just swallowed all that fire inside his body, sweating and shivering at the same time, fingers instinctively gripping the handrail of the stands, knuckle-bruising strength. 

He doesn't know who's bitten more than they could chew.

\--

Early afternoon is practice time. Suna’s back stings a little when he gets up and he drowns it in painkillers. They are running out, maybe he could get some from Osamu without him noticing. Empty stage, the sun barely sneaking in the few openings in the tent’s ceiling. Suna takes a deep breath before climbing to the spot with the trapeze bar, getting chalk on his palms. 

Lining up his knees with the bar, Suna closes his eyes and takes a breath before letting the trapeze loose in the air. It blows his hair away from his face and sends a thrilling sensation down his spine that is never gone. In his head the song that will play in the presentation night echoes slowly, its bass dragging the melody very slowly, the voice of the vocalist a whisper he mouths voicelessly. 

It’s his quasi-death experience that fuels the will to live in his veins, there was no way to find another explanation. The air is the domain of no man, his body is pushed there for seconds, defying the logic. His thoughts are all gone when it feels, for a single moment, that his soul and body lose sync that sends a delicious shiver down his spine. 

Danger is the edge he’s been walking on since he knows himself in the world, an addiction he can’t get rid of even if he tried. His body had tried.

It’s what he was born to do, the scars of hours and hours of practice, the slight weight of a medal on his neck and the ghosts of an audience applauding his maneuvers on the ground, music guiding his body into telling a story. The stage of the circus is not the same as a full stadium, he does not have the dreamed, god-like glory of an Olympian. He’s never really thought he’d have, a gymnasts life is short and his case just happened to an unlucky one, an accident that for a few centimeters did not take his freedom away forever.

He should be grateful to be standing on his feet, it’s one occasion in one million where life rewards him a second chance to do things better, to try it out again. 

Suna learned to be stubborn and greedy watching qualifiers on a hospital bed, clenching his fist, the familiar scraping of bars in chalk covered hands was a ghost touch he could barely feel. 

He had no one else waiting for him, not that he could remember. The swing of the trapezes in a circus brought the thrill back and he followed without thinking twice. He’s been sitting on that bed for too long, body decaying in a shallow of what he knew he could be one day, of what he’d never be able to do again.

There’s a sting in his back whenever he climbs on the bars and plays with the roof, the pieces of steel buried in his spine straining his bones, keeping it all together. 

It gives him a reminder, burning pain forces his grip on the cables of the trapeze bar out of reflex, it spreads from his lower back to all over his body making the world spin along the bar. 

It’s dark, there’s the echo of the applause he hears nightly, when his back bends to his will and his fingertips graze the light of freedom. They say he’s a viper, a snake slithering his way into people’s eyes, enticing form and hypnotic gaze impossible to tear away from.

He’s never believed in destiny, always looking for a way to lead life in the present. There’s no such thing as a built path for every person. Cause and consequence reign supreme over all the happenings in the world. 

Still, under the spotlight of the ring, letting his back hang him in the air inside a hoop, listening to the cheers, Suna can forget the pins in his spine, the weight of his nonexistent medal. He’s on top of his own podium and has the audience in his hands, ready to steal their breaths away. 

The power is addictive and convinces him, it’s where he’s meant to be. 

The withdrawal consumes him from the inside, pulls him back to the steady surface.

Suna doesn’t know how he’d managed to get his feet back on the floor from lying on the security net, body throbbing when he lifts his head in response to a voice he thinks he’s heard. 

“Osamu?”

Osamu has no dagger nor fire, but Suna feels both on his skin under that gaze. 

He nodded to the outside, taking out a deck of cards from his pocket. “Come play me.”

Without saying anything else Suna followed along as if pulled by an invisible thread tied to Osamu to the trailer. He's sitting on the floor and the sunlight barely hits inside the trailer, covered by big and leafy trees that casted a shadow over a spot a bit too far from the circus itself.

"What are playing?" He crosses his legs just like his arms were. Candles light up the place, flames trembling slightly with his every move and breath. Suna wants to talk normally but his voice forces itself to whisper, utter words for only Osamu to hear. 

Osamu shuffles the deck and hands him the cards. "Choose."

"Thought you wouldn't show me any more magic tricks." 

"I won't." Osamu's voice was a whisper too. Too close to him in that tight space amidst makeshift rooms as messy as his own. The candles resist against the constant bouncing of one of his knees. "I'll give some lucky guesses." there was a laugh, a mockery hidden in his seemingly plain voice that Suna does not like. 

"Cartomancy? You believe this?" He pulled three, like Osamu had pointed out, and displayed them on the table.

The deck was shuffled again, cards bending on Osamu's skillful hands. The candle near his spot threatened to be blown by the wind from outside. The cards on the table were in the deck again. 

"Can ya remember what ya chose?"

"I do, let's see if you can." Suna gave him a smile that made Osamu's brow quirk up, barely visible. 

"Show me" the eyes spell. Green and Silver under the light of a single flame and the forgotten sunlight that slowly distanced from them. 

Osamu's not wearing a long sleeved shirt, he pulls the first card of the deck. "Four of clubs" 

Suna nods. Osamu's mouth twitches upwards a little. "Upcoming threat."

"Where did you learn this?"

"Ya gotta learn to do everything to please the public when ya work with performing." He snorted, putting the card on the floor again, the simplistic pattern of the black and white checkered back of the card contrasting the wooden floor. "A four means bad luck, unexpected events."

"Can you ask it the day I'm gonna die?"

"I can, it just won't really."

"You're so funny."

"And yer making me impatient." Osamu rolled his eyes and reached for something Suna couldn't see until it lit up. A lighter. 

"Give me yer four." Suna handed the card, stretching his arm as much as he could to get away from it. He knew what Osamu could do with a single lighter. 

And he wasn't wrong. Heat spread all over his body when Osamu blew on the flame, engorging it towards the card. The surface burned on his palm, small Sparks flying from it. 

The fire was gone, but the heat didn't leave Suna's cheeks and ears, lingering on his skin as he watched Osamu's eyes on the lighter. On the candles and the ashes of the card. Enticed, hypnotized and focused on the light. 

He blows the ashes away from the surface. "Ya still remember it?" 

The card. Of course it was the card. "Spades." 

More ashes blow. Osamu's finger slides on the card for some seconds before revealing it. A jack of spades. 

"Depression, disillusion." Osamu finishes cleaning the card and throws it at Suna's hands. "Distrust and commitment issues."

"You're letting these cards give you the talk I didn't let you have?"

"Who knows. Ya always look impressed, it's nice to have someone new to show a trick."

"That's why you interrupted me?" 

"Not exactly." Osamu's reaches for the candle and places it in the space between them and handling him the deck one last time. "Yers is the last one."

It really was. Suna failed trying to hold his mouth closed.

"Ya know, Suna," Osamu leaned forward, taking the card from his hand. He held the card between his index and middle finger, checkered back to Suna's face. "Predictions, guessing, faith and magic, they're all ways to escape." 

"Escape from what?" 

"Life." His eyes met Suna's and did not leave as Osamu uttered every following word. "The freedom we're born with is the biggest burden we have. We rely foolishly on what we're not supposed to understand so there's now way to avoid the inevitable."

"All you do is a consequence of yer own choice, and so are the impacts ya make on people's lives." There's a bitterness to the way it's phrased from his lips, soft worry, regret Suna can't wait to taste from that mouth. 

"Triumph of the individual over the matter of feeling, it's good energy." The card danced on Osamu's hand when he flicked his wrist. Osamu sat in front of Suna with the bouncing knee bent, the other stretched forward. His other arm is over Suna's hand, resting on the floor. Osamu's impossibly cold breath is on Suna's skin, his hands radiate goosebumps all over his arms.

"What else does it say?" He asks, pretending to not notice the way his own voice faltered, trembling in his throat. 

The hand that played the card and made them switch and vanish from his vision now tucked a strand of Suna's dark brown hair away from them, emerald green eyes, cloudy but glinting as they always were. A predator in constant state of alert. 

"The ace of hearts is love." Osamu threw it away, swiftly. "Arousing heat." He whispered, body towering over him even if Suna was taller. His lips brush his ear, the air travels down his spine like an electric shock. 

Burning, bruising and desperate is the kiss Suna pulls Osamu in, the thinnest thread that was his self control snapping in two when he feels those hands warm against his skin, travel under his shirt to meet the skin of his waist. Suna's tongue tastes sweet mint. Bubblegum, he'd guess later. 

The lack of light in the trailer was a nuisance mostly, but it fit perfectly with them, silhouettes and shadows drawn on the wall, squeaks of furniture and short breaths echoing to the outside. 

Suna mouths Osamu's neck, tongue sliding from his collarbone all the way up to his jaw. The bites throbbed, sharp canines scratched the sensitive skin behind his ear. Osamu shivered on the sofa, hands that gripped Suna's waist above his lap holding tighter, just enough to bruise. 

No words are traded when those green eyes shine in the living room with the moonlight coming from the window, the last thing Osamu sees before it comes, the taste of Suna's mouth invading his tongue when the sharp teeth bite his lower lip, forcing his way in. 

Suna Rintarou is delightful inside his mouth and the way his hands wrap around his neck to pull him closer, as if desperately craving for just he'd been, it's like the match he lights up onstage that blows into a beautiful explosion. 

Osamu has him lying on his back, his smell invading his senses, something of a natural scent that mixed with the wet grass from the rain earlier, coming from the open window of the trailer, something familiar yet unknown. 

Suna is beautiful, gasping under him, reading into his eyes in a trick, defying the limits of his body on the stage. He's gorgeously messed up, teared apart at the edges and cold. He's broken, beautifully broken. 

"What are you looking at?" There's a strain in his voice, Suna doesn't know whether to keep it in secret whispers late at night or let himself loose to it, scream and curse all he wants. 

"Just thinkin'" Osamu mutters, and his arms raise to let him rest above Suna's chest. 

Green eyes glint and hands force him back to the sugary lips he's trying not to kiss until he's drunk on it. 

"For once," Suna's voice is still a whisper that sends a shiver down Osamu's spine "let's not think about anything at all." 

There's a smile in his tone and cockiness in the way his hand sneaks inside Osamu's shirt. Why was it still there again? He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know anymore when he's got that mouth on his and his own hands roaming on Suna's sides, scratching and squeezing just enough to make him squirm under his grip. 

For tonight, he'll be a man possessed by the addictive flavor of Suna's lips and skin on his tongue, let the drug send him on a power trip, make him believe there's meaning to whatever they're doing.

Osamu's convinced he's never been this free, Suna's under his grip, but he is the one with the viper around him, all over. He's tasted venom and craved for death before.

It's deliciously sweet. 

Suna doesn't want to think about it now. If Osamu took the candle that trembled on the plate and raised it between them to Suna's eyes and blew it out, leaving them in complete darkness to taste and feel each other, it was between Osamu and him only. 

If Suna whispers, pleads and bites his lip to muffle noises he can't get out, it's between the deafening darkness and himself. 

Choices are powerful, Osamu is correct. He has chosen a path away from reason and existence. Seemed for emptiness and found it. 

Osamu did the same, he wanted to believe, and ached to feel for more than what Suna could imagine, it's written on his body on the following morning, light skin littered with bruises, bites, and searing pain all over him.

It's okay. He'd chosen it. Blind to the consequences they choose and wait for it to hit them in hopes the world would reward or punish as it has done before. 

Suna's choices took away meaning, led to walking on tightrope and swirling on the trapeze for an empty stage. 

What had Osamu's taken him to?

\--

They're supposed to park around for two weeks that extend for a month, the success of the trapeze show and the mysterious contortionist attracting the cities around. Osamu is glad to have a bit of establishment for once, a familiar ground to step on, and a place to come back to at nights when his head plagued him particularly bad, asking about the matchbox Suna never gave him. 

The box was never there, only the desire to sneak a peek behind the emerald doors of a soul he wasn't sure existed inside a body that, although he knew had blood pumping inside of it and breathed oxygen like him, was questionably alive. 

The clouds in the sky swirl with the wind creating a pink, blue and white painting that matches the circus tent below it. Childish colors painting the firmament that held one or two stars that shied away from the sunlight. 

"Didn't take you for the kind to like sunsets." Suna yawned from the door of the trailer. He handed Osamu a can of beer and sat on the grass, eyes darting away from the sun.

"What d'ya have against them?" 

"Nothing." 

"They help me empty my head.” Osamu sighed, sitting on the soft grass too, leaning his back against the front of the trailer. 

The pink turns bright, hot and red when Osamu’s eyes are on the sky again. His head spins all day, revisiting memories he begs to be forgotten, screaming regrets into his skull. There’s something about the fire that eases it all out, warm and small but devastating. Nature is ironically fucked up but beautiful in his hands. Taming it on the stage gave his hands a firmer grip on life and made him feel like he’s doing something right for once. 

“Do you want another one?” Suna asks, his voice seemed muffled inside his head. He’s at the door again, giving Osamu that barely noticeable smile that reflects in his eyes. 

The sunlight hits his figure at all the right places. His dark brown hair shines in a golden shade near his eyes, the shadow of the night falling over his pale skin. As if the sky wanted to be him. There’s a warmth Osamu can’t name when Suna quirks an eyebrow and crosses his arms, waiting for a response that he doesn’t register when it leaves his mouth. 

The taste of the beer is bitter in his mouth when he takes sip, already inside the trailer he’s been attending more than his own.

Suna’s back is turned to him, he’s in the makeshift bedroom pushing the curtain aside to let the moon cast its light on his features. Blue, white and black, cold colors that feel the warmest when Osamu throws the beer can away and imagines Suna’s eyes rolling to the back of his head when he says it. 

“Didn’t take ya for a guy that likes watching’ the moon.” Osamu lied. 

There's no telling what they are. Card games don't finish themselves anymore, lost in the desperate need to peel all clothes off and press their bodies flush against each other, pondering if they should worry about the noise.

There's no telling if it's real, if both of them are anything but a shallow, empty shell of someone they could've been. Nevertheless, the words whispered between sweet pleads and the silence of the bed, when they think the other is sleeping, feel like the first mouthful of the meal they've been craving for. 

Tripping on the power of the toggle war of jabs, questions and looks, Suna and Osamu fit, all rough edges and teared ends, memories to be forgotten and an anguished, distressed plea to feel something for once. 

Digging deeper, looking further and further and losing themselves in each other's arms until the withdrawal of loneliness and cowardice pull them away. Falling harder and harder each day. 

The final blow comes in a whisper, drowned in a moan in the silence of late night. 

"Don't leave me."

"I won't."

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I scammed you all the way here the snakes were metaphorical


End file.
